I made a table for a Portaband

I have some exhaust stuffs to fabricate soon. I previously would have done all of my cutting at the local makerspace, but have decided to put together some specific fixturing, so I built a table for a Bosch portable band saw which can attach to my welding table or be clamped in my bench vise. The Bosch uses the same 1140 mm blade as most deep-cut portable band saws and has a nice blade guard and a 120 mm cut capacity in both height and depth. It does have the disadvantage of a safety feature which prevents it from starting when the trigger is depressed before power is applied, meaning it won't work with a foot switch. I've ordered a cable-operated trigger actuator from Swag Offroad.

I took a gamble on if the table would be too thin to support the weight of the saw without deflecting. I ended up needing to add some ribbing under the table top to support it. If I end up making another one, I'll make a much thicker top and mill a slot from underneath for the saw to ride in. Or I'll incorporate a removable section and keep the box sections all the way around. Either way, right now I can replace the blade without needing to remove the saw from the table.

Next on the agenda is some fixturing to be able to cut tubing for exhaust work.

I like it!  My fingers are scared of it a bit..  :-)  

Well that went WAY better than I was expecting!

I bit the bullet and bought the swag table. Absolutely worth every dime to have the micro band at your disposal. I use it daily in the shop. Nice job on yours!

I did too, it's been really handy. To get past the trigger problem, I just use some velcro wrapped around trigger -once you push the button in and squeeze the trigger it stays engaged so you wrap the velcro strap around it tightly and use the floor switch - works a treat.

That looks great!

In reply to Teh E36 M3 :

I was flush with cash and bought the Portaband Pro. I should have bought the Swag one as I never seem to use the chopsaw set up of the Pro.

OP, nice table!

preach (dudeist priest) said:

In reply to Teh E36 M3 :

I was flush with cash and bought the Portaband Pro. I should have bought the Swag one as I never seem to use the chopsaw set up of the Pro.

 

OP, nice table!

Thank you! I think this ended up at about the same cost as a Swag table, but I wanted to be able to attach it to my fab table and clamp it in my bench vise.

My Swag push-pull cable trigger operator came in today. I'll be putting it together tomorrow.

This thread, combined with Curtis' parts database idea makes me think we should have a 3D/CAD database

+1 for SendCutSend

+2 for cat tax